1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a portable personal hygiene apparatus for use by persons with limited physical mobility, including elderly and physically handicapped individuals. More particularly, the invention relates to such an apparatus that can be readily transported to almost any location, e.g., adjacent to a patient's bed, half bath, kitchen, laundry room, etc., and includes a contoured, water-impermeable user support that will comfortably accommodate most persons in a sitting posture, and conveniently permits personal hygiene tasks such as bathing/showering, hair shampooing, manicure or pedicure, etc. to be performed by a caregiver while a person is seated in the contoured user support. The apparatus of the invention avoids the conventional need of transporting an elderly, invalid or disabled patient to the shower or bathtub where hazards may cause injuries to the caregiver and the patient, while still providing a high-quality, refreshing, bathing experience for the patient.
2. Description of Related Art
When a person suffers an injury, aging, illness or disability that prevents the person from normal physical activities, additional care is needed for the person, or invalid. This additional care may involve providing aid for enabling use of a shower or bath by the person. Bathing, however, is quite important not only for the person's health, but for the person/patient to maintain high self-esteem and dignity.
A common solution is to position a chair within a conventional shower stall or bathtub for the limited mobility person to sit upon. Unfortunately, the use of a chair in such setting requires the transfer of the person to the chair which his disposed in the tub or in the shower stall. It is not uncommon for injuries to occur to the caregiver and/or the limited mobility person being transferred to the bathing area.
Another common solution is the sponge bath. The sponge bath is often performed by a caregiver or nurses aide, and does not provide a refreshing experience analogous to a conventional bath or shower.
Another known solution for bathing an invalid is to transfer the individual to a wheelchair for transportation to a wheelchair accessible shower stall.
All of these known solutions have the disadvantage of requiring transport of the limited mobility person to the shower or bath, requiring staff and equipment for the transfer. Injuries to the caregivers and the patients can occur during these transfers since water and other hazards abound. In addition, the level of awareness of the patient and weight of the invalid patient can cause difficulties in the transfer of the patient to and in the bathing facilities.
In view of the known disadvantages, there have been proposed some mobile bathing apparatus which can significantly reduce the amount of movement required for transferring and retaining the limited mobility person to a location where the person may be bathed. Such known mobile showering apparatus are, for example, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,516,477, issued in 2003 to Storm, entitled “SHOWER APPARATUS FOR SEATED OCCUPANT, U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,983, issued in 1999 to Queen et al., entitled PORTABLE SHOWERING CABINET, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,974,268, issued in 1990 to Cors et al., entitled CHAIR BATHUB. Each of these known apparatus includes a showering nozzle connected/connectable to a water supply for discharging clean water onto a patient seated or supported in the apparatus, collects water that has been used to bathe the patient, and possibly discharges the collected bath water to a sewer drain or the like.
While these known apparatus provide bathing options for persons with limited physical mobility, they still have certain limitations and disadvantages associated therewith. For example, the apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,983 is relatively complex and involved leading to a prohibitive cost. Also, while it is mobile, it still relatively large so that it cannot be easily transported to some confined locations, such as within a bedroom, in a half bath, or next to a patient's bed. Still further, this apparatus includes an enclosed chair that may be difficult for an invalid to access and/or to remain comfortably seated in during a bathing operation. The apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 6,516,477 must be used in conjunction with a toilet, and the apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 4,974,268 has limited mobility/transportability that makes it inappropriate for many situations.
The present invention has been developed to address the disadvantages of known bathing apparatus for individuals with limited physical mobility, and to fulfill a perceived need in the art for a bathing apparatus which can comfortably accommodate most persons, provide a high-quality, refreshing, bathing experience for the persons, is substantially-fully contained, can be readily transported to substantially any location, and yet is simple and economical to manufacture.